Contents
Chapter 11
Overview
The chapter depicts abandoned farmhouses deteriorating after tenant families are driven off the land. Tractors replace farmers, severing human connection to the soil and fostering contempt in hired drivers. As structures fall into disrepair, scavengers and wildlife reclaim them, symbolizing the human cost of mechanized, absentee agriculture.
Summary
The narrative contrasts living, breathing farm work with dead, efficient machinery. Horses once left warmth in barns; tractors, once shut down, are lifeless metal. Hired tractor drivers, detached from the land they do not own, treat soil as chemistry and efficiency, losing wonder, relationship, and respect for the fields and for themselves.
With families evicted, doors of empty houses swing in the wind. Town boys roam in to smash windows and pick through debris for small finds, snickering over crude graffiti and the stink of decay. The houses, no longer tended, begin their quick decline.
Former house cats slink in at dusk, mewling for people who no longer come, then turn feral to hunt gophers and mice in the fields and rooms. Bats, once held back by light, sweep through the dark interiors and roost in rafters, their droppings marking the abandonment.
Mice store seeds in corners and drawers as weasels and owls return to hunt them. Weeds thrust up through doorsteps and porch boards after a small rain. Winds pry shingles free, sun burns holes of light onto the floors, doors bang, and ragged curtains flutter—nature and neglect methodically unmaking the deserted homes.
Who Appears
- Tractor manHired machine driver, efficient yet estranged from the land, embodying mechanized, absentee agriculture.
- Town boysScavenge and vandalize abandoned farmhouses, accelerating visible decay.
- House cats turned feralOnce domestic, they become wild hunters in fields and empty rooms.
- BatsSweep into dark houses to roost in rafters, marking abandonment.
- MiceStore seeds in corners and drawers, thriving in the vacant homes.
- Weasels and owlsPredators returning to hunt mice within the deserted structures.